Chinese Literature

was in his mind. Forceps in hand, he attacked the secrew-head of the delayed action bomb. The grip was too small, however, and both the forceps and the neck of the screw-head were slippery. If he did get the forceps open enough to reach round, it would not grip properly, and skidded in his hands. For half an hour he struggled, getting impatient, with his eyes starting from his head and the sweat streaming down his face. I could not bear to stand and watch so impotently, but longed to help in vain. I had never felt so useless! He tried first the forceps, then the scalpel, then from that to the scissors .. . the whole range of his tools. The electroplating of the surgical instruments flashed in the sunlight. Even the most experienced surgeon would feel the strain, I thought, if he had to spend so long on the most difficult operation, and would feel his instruments growing heavy and his hand less sure. He would repeatedly ask his assistant how the patient’s pulse was, and would turn to the theatre sister to have the sweat wiped off his brow. But Comrade Tsui Yi was not a surgeon, nor was he working in a quiet, clean operating theatre. He was digging in the crater of a volcano; or travelling over an ice-bound river in early spring. If the volcano become active, or the ice begin to break up... .

Then with a roar of thunderous sound the mountains and the earth shook, and a blast of gunpowder-filled air swept over us, knocking down a Korean girl. Close on its heels came a cloud of smoke, which sealed off our view completely. As it cleared I saw the Commandant begin to speak, and then could hear him call out to Tsui Yi.

To our relief an answering hail came through the smoke screen... at least we knew that he was alive, and that the explosion must have come from one of the bombs on the other hillside. The smoke wreaths cleared off further, and there was Tsui Yi still intent on his work. He stopped and looked round at us, his face blacked all over with the smoke.

“Comrade Commandant, all of you,” he shouted imperatively like the artillery leader that he was. ‘Listen, everyone, if I hear anything and tell you to lie down, you must do so straight away. Do you understand? When I call, ‘lie down!’ you’re to do so.”

“What about yourself?” the Commandant hallooed back.

“Oh, me! You don’t have to worry about me.”

When he said, “Oh, me!” my mind went back to last night. Commandant Shen seemed to resign himself to being unable to move Tsui Yi from the spot, but three combatant soldiers offered to be a rescue party to go in so as to be able to move Tsui Yi away at the last moment. Commandant Shen told them to be careful to remember about his wounded kneecap, and they began to move forward to take up their posts. But when they started towards him, he shouted out, “Halt. Stay still!’ in English. All our Volunteers knew the phrase. It was the one they had learnt in Korea to use when they met the enemy close to. They stopped and looked round at the Commandant to see what he thought they ought